When I think about kids watching a TV show like American Idol or The Voice, then they think, ‘Oh, OK, that’s how you become a musician, you stand in line for eight fucking hours with 800 people at a convention center and… then you sing your heart out for someone and then they tell you it’s not fuckin’ good enough.’ Can you imagine? It’s destroying the next generation of musicians.

Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy an old fucking drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck, too. And then they’ll fucking start playing and they’ll have the best time they’ve ever had in their lives and then all of a sudden they’ll become Nirvana. Because that’s exactly what happened with Nirvana. Just a bunch of guys that had some shitty old instruments and they got together and started playing some noisy-ass shit, and they became the biggest band in the world.

That can happen again. You don’t need a fucking computer or the internet or The Voice or American Idol.

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Another giveaway! Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is back with their new album Specter At The Feast, and they’ll be playing Kool Haus in Toronto Thursday night in support of it. I couldn’t be happier. They’ve been one of my favourites since they released the absolutely flawless Howl in 2005 – one of the strongest albums of the decade.

Thanks to Live Nation you can win a pair of tickets to see them play by subscribing to TTRO – just enter your email in that little box on the left sidebar and once you click the confirmation email you will be entered. If you’re already a subscriber and you’d like to enter, just comment below using the email you used to subscribe – where it asks for your email (not in the body of the comment!) – so I can confirm.

Contest ends and the winner will be contacted Thursday morning. Watch the video for the gorgeous new track “Returning” below:

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This is so cool. Click here to go to the interactive map from the Every Noise At Once project, and click on any genre you want to hear a sample from a song that falls within that genre. For so long I had no idea what the difference between the 1000 kinds of metal were! This is quite helpful. If you hit the ‘scan’ button it’ll randomly play songs from throughout the map, try it.

It’s interesting to see which artists and songs fit into which genre. It’s a given that Dylan would represent ‘folk’ and Nick Drake ‘british folk’, but bands like Modest Mouse (lo-fi), Cat Power (slow core?! lol), Yeah Yeah Yeahs (indie rock) and Bruce Springsteen (roots rock) all could have been given other genres. Also surprised that The Beatles were not the ‘british invasion’ song, and that Nirvana played for ‘alternative rock’ rather than ‘grunge.’

It’s not quite every genre of all time (people keep making new ones up daily – Cold Specks will put ‘doom soul’ on that map!), but according to the site it is a work in progress they continue to update – definitely something worth bookmarking.

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To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom. 

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The Strokes are back with a new album, Comedown Machine, and I have a copy to give away on vinyl as well as a copy on CD!

To enter you just have to subscribe to TTRO by putting your email into the box on the sidebar where it says subscribe. You will get an email asking you to confirm your subscription and once you confirm you will be entered to win. If you are already a subscriber, just comment below using the email address you used to subscribe where it asks for your email so I can verify.

Contest ends and winners will be contacted on Thursday May 2nd! This giveaway is open to Canadians only.

Watch the new video for “All The Time” below:

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